Monday 8:45 AM Dr. Aziz, North Medical
October 2, 7:45 AM MRI 4520 West Taft
Thursday, March 30, 2006, 4:27 PM
I'mat Three River GMA. I am surrounded by peeper sound. Some rednecks with dogs just drove up and parkedby me and got ouffing cigarettes and headed out where Iwantto walk. Luckily, I'd already decided tot ake the Periwinkle berm trail and they're taking the Bunker trail However, the trails intersect out in fox hunt meadow.
I just found out about an hour or two ago that I have a small nonmalignat brain tumor. Or that was what Iwas told from the results of the MRI.
Needless to say Im not happy about it.
I read my before-walking Patrick Lawlerpoem It is Markdancing and the radio of the brain. During the hour I found out about my brain tumor, there was an NPR special on the Terry Scribo case. Her husband,doctor,layers, authors. They talked about living wills. Imade one, but who knows where itis.
Erin says, did they tell you that on the phone. She says you're not supposed to email people about that. They told meon the phone. I emailed people. I called keith. I don't know anything yet. But Iwanted to give people a heads up.
If they toldmethe truth,and who knows if the did, then I don't have t worry toomuch immediately
I may not die and I maynotlosemymind andmemory. ButI'd better makeplans and arrnagemnts in case. Another guy in a truck with a dog pulls up.
I need to go walk. I'mrelaxing in the sun. It's warm and peeperish.
It's odd that I have a tumor inmy brianon theright side like my mother. Maybe Ishould check and see if I also have an encapsulated thymoma. I think ofmy mother right beofre herthymoma operation. She lay in bed in pain and terror and said inthemornig that itmade her wonder about people who supposedly die peacefully in their sleep. "If I had died,"she said, "you might have thought I died peacefully in my sleep." Then again, if in the midst of that pain she died or did not die, the pain and terror are there just the same.
I'm not in pain and i feel fairly relaxed, but nervous, a little, inside.
A woodfrog rumbles. The peeper din has died down.
I have my camera Eeyore with the 75-300 zoomand Ollie. I accidentallyleft everythinge lse home. DUH!
Wow! The periwinkle Berm trail isMUCH more well-used than ut used to be! it's very clear, easy to walk on comparitively. There are sometrees down, but why anyone would take the bunker trail when the periwinkle berm trail is so much nicer is beyond me. That's OK though, more privacy for me!
I'm hiking in a T-shit! I'm not even carrying my nice green sweatshit that I brought with me,hope I don't regret that!
OK,my living will:
• don't keep me alive if I'm a vegetable.
• don'tpull the plug if there's reasonable chance of recovery to a lucid state. Do pull the plug if the odds are against real recovery
• unless i tell you otherwise at the time, give me morphine if I'm suffering terribly, even if it shortens my life. I'm not a big fan of terrible pain
• if I'm in the hospital or nursing home etc, make sure they know I'mallergic to dairy and soy. I don't need fibromylagia contributing to my pain. Bad fibro makes me uncomfortable even in bed.
• don't feel obligated to visit me all the time, but don't abandonme either, if possible, even if I'm notlucid. Talk to me,tell mestories,read to me, sing to me.
• If you are there when I am dying, hold myhand or touch me. Tell me stories about my life and yours. sing. Play cheerful music,like Mozart piano sonatas. Do NOT play slow morunful violin music.
• After Idie, have a big party (an old Irish wake) Have fun and remember the good times. Then go on with your life.
• Don't leave things the way I left them, keep growing and changing. Keep loving. But don't forget me, either.
I've reached the end of the periwinkle Berm trail and it joins with the fox Meadow road. Fox Hunt Meadow Road, that is, thatruns between Fox Hunt Meadow and the Bunker trail. Swamps on both sides. The din of peepers and wood frogs rises and falls.
The first think I wnated to do when I heard the bad news iis eat something bad. But I guess it is more important that ever to eat healthy foods.
My hips are worse than they have been in a while. I wonder if my fear which I'm not aware of feeling too badly is coming to rest in my hips and being expressed there. Or if it's the candy I ate after the MRI the other day.
I amalmost out to Fox Hunt Meadow. The mourning doves are cooing. The secondman with his one dog is out on the traila head of me. I don't knowwhere the cigarette smokingr edneck couple with 5 dogs went.
DidImention that some small kids on bies rode by when I was still on Potter road and I thought of trying to make blurred image photos of them but I didn't want to worry their parnets, so Ididn't.
There's still snow here.
Patches of it on the north sides of the hedgerows. In spite of the T-shirt warmth.
What are the questions you'll need answers to if I get very sick The living willquestions? I know Imade out aliving will,butI don't know where it is.
Or what it said.
I hope to be fine,and I don't want to be morbid. But I do wnat to cover all abes possible. I'd like to live a very long happy healthy productive life.
I've walked 23minutes, and I should go back. I used to come out here on a day off and wander for hours, takemynotebook, sitand write,explore,discover, look at plants, take pictures.
Rightnear hereis where I got shot at once, bullets whsitling around me,and leaves tearing fromthe treeabovemy head. Crows caw and complain. Even though I peedbefore Ileft,I despeately have to goand sneak into a small clump of bushes
Madame Curie and Terry Scribo Meets Dr. Death
They told me today I have a brain tunor, small
they said, and not malignant. In my dream of Terry Scribo,
A redneck walks through her hair with his rifle and hunting dogs.
A small brown bird flutters in the small brown grass. Its heart
falls out in iny hand. But no, it's the telphone
spewing words. Brain tumor. The bird lifts
from the grass brain tumor and flying low, disappears
back into the grass. An ocean of grass. One little brown bird.
The hunter shoots anything the moves and his dogs retrieve it.
I search the swamp and hemlocks for a place to sit.
No one asked me if I was sitting whenthey said, tumor.
Once, Dante called to read me a poem.
In my dream of Terry Schribo, the sun hangs ornage
in the cage of her ribs and sings like -- (poet)
I was on my way out the door. Are you sitting down?
Dante asked. I sat. I sat for seven hours, his words echoing
in my head. I am Beatrice he said. I am Narcissus and you my water, my mirror.
I am Dante, he said, and you are the seven layers of hell.
A woodpecker hammers a tree, drums
and drums. But no one asked me if I was sitting,
They said, brain tumor.
In my dream of Terry Shribo, bees have made
honeycomb in her brain.
Peepers sing, loud in the swamp around me. And that hammering
woodpecker. And the honey seeped out on her tongue
the sun sinks hazy in the hemlocks. I'm thinking about morphine,
about making a will. About surgery and radiation.
The woods darken around me, the geese fly over.
In my dream of Terry Scribo, her eyes flicker and open.
In those blank pools, she sees the sun sizzling down
into the ocean
a geyser of steam erupting in the newborn darkness.
Around me, trees are dreaming themselves a forest.
There's a hole in their dream where I sit.
Mary Stebbins 060330a
---
I'mthinking about Frog Haven and all the work I didon it that got lost on Dead.
I'm thinking about how i wantedto make each of the characters more human, more fully rounded, and give them each a share in the novel. Marc and Sissy lie on their backs looking up atthe sky and ask, what's beyond the star. etc. Every single cahracter that ismentioned should be humanized in some way so as not to be cardboard cutouts.
The sad and upsetting thing is that in somecases, I can't think of a real and approapriate way to humanize them. I'membarassed and asamed to admit this. If I try getting inside their skins, I can't see out. it's hard to fathom why somepeople dowhat theydo, but I need to do that.
I'mback out on Potter Road.The sun ismostly gone, but I find a spot of itand sit on a rock. The rock is cold and the sun has been draine do its warmth. It is thecolor of tea with ornages. two, then three mosquitos hover aroundme. A robin sings loudly for rain and the little stream besidemegurles loudly too.
Some crucifer seed head is missing its seeds and the long thin oo are translucentand full of sun. 5 mosquitoes are hovering around my arms and I'm not eager for my first mosquito bite so I get up They follow me back toward the car.
I'm thinking Imight go to Bangkok Thai. I wantto eat something yummy.
I read myPatrickLawlerAfter-the-walk poem about ynestra kind and think about a Terry Scribo poem. He's probably already done one betterthan anything I could do.
6:49 I am sitting alone at Bangkok Thai. I ordermy favorite #18 and a springroll and I intend ot have dessert. And I hope to come back sometime soon.
Joy gave me a hug. She asked me how Iwas. I hesitaed a mment and then didnt' tell her. She seems so happy. I don't want even a shadow to pass her face and I don't have any info anyway. You can't exactly announce you just found out you have a brain tumor and that's why you came.
It's pretty cowded. I read a Patrick Lalwler poem. I brought the book in with me. I'mhaving a little teeny tiny bit of a headache on the right side of my head and I can't help but worry.
Meow and Joy and at leats one other girl are running around like mad. They bring me water and the lemon smells so sweet, not sugar sweet, but floral sweet. They bring me my spring rool anda curry puff and it is so incredbibly delcious. Better than I remember. Joy is so sweet, I love her cheery nature, her high happy girlish voice.
She needs to be a character in one of my books..
I want to give her a present,Meow, too.
But I have nothing relaly to give them.
7:12 PM Ah, I'm feeling a little better. I had#18,squid and vegetables and Thai noodles withoyster sauce, yum. It firstI thought it was too mild,but it got hotter and hotterandhotter as I ate it. The squid was larger than usual, but very good, excellent.
Ah. now for some of that coconut egg custard.
Iread another patrick Lawler poem. Dorothy Arzner falling through Adrienne Riche's mosutache.
I could have a brain tumor and die in a car accident because the engine seizes in heavy traffic. Keith could driveonto the shoulder,but he forgets I don't drive inthe outside lane.
I am still trying to humanize my brother. There are these huge holes in mymemory.
Instead of childhood, I have thesemore recent images:
• my bother after a heart attack, running around in the mountains of Colorado with his dog and his camper
• my brother, posing for a picture with his bikeup on top of a fence --and himon it
• my brother riding motorcycles
• my brother sneaking chocolate chip cookies when he wasn't supoosed to have them
• my brother buying various presents formy mother,holding har hand,joking with her
• the banter at the table, Smack talk
• my brother the ace skier,t he incredibly good skier!
• my borther mountain climbing. I have someemoryof us way ahead,myfather trying to call us back
I need more,more specific, more seasonally apt, more "ancient history" memories.
• caoeing at Raquette Lake, my being the princess in themiddle, or not.
• FISHING at south meadow
• diving off the bridge
• climbing the cliffs behind the dump
• warching the bears at the dump, and taunting them.
• the buddy burners or hobo stoves as we callled them down in the sandpit.
•
Meow is talking about their upcoming trip to Thailand.
Friday, March 31, 2006, 5~22 PM I am in Oakwood Cemetery for my cnstitutional and upset because the Psion wouldn't work. I finally got it working. I wish I had one of these that just worked..
I just took Mom for a walk. It's overcast, very over, but pretty warm. It was warmer earlier,now there's a cool. Momwas really happy to be out.
Coming in to Oakwood,I saw a young manlying on the ground curled around a grave covered with flowers. I can only imagine from his pose that it was his wife, or girlfriend, someone he dearly loved has died. I felt guity just for having my radio on and my window open when I drove by. 'mnot here tomourn anyone,just to walk.
I have a poetry reading at 7 and was afraid if I went to Clark and walked, I would get back in time, but then I wasted time farting around with the Psion.
Dr. Fazio's office scheduled another MRI for mein Octoer to check the progress of my tumor. At Dr. Aziz's request they said. October 2, 7:45 AM, North Medical.
I waste more time writing down the appointments, they called on the cell while I was at Loretto. I have to reset the clock in the Psion every timeit messes up. I need to get backup batteries and I keep forgetting. Grrr!
A beautiful slender young girl (college age young woman) goes by in a skirt and bare feet and I'm sad to be old and fat.
I cahnge lenses. It's too darkly overcast probably for the long lens. I put on the wide angle. Changing lenses is harder without Keith.
QQQQQ
Questions for Dr. Aziz
• where is the tumorlocated?
• how big is it?
• what is the prognosis?
• is there anything i can do to improve the prognosis?
• what will you do?
• how do you know it is notmalignant, if in fact you do know that?
• Can I see the pictures?
• Can I have a copy (xerox)?
• was the dizzy spellcaused by the tumor? If not what caused the dizzy spell and will it recur?
QE
I go down to the old entrance that keith said he'd like to photograph. Under the archway are blankets and clothes as if somehomeless person had sheltered there. On the other side are snowdrops. In flower. I take a picture.
But I cannot take picture of the archway, not in a single frame,my wide angle isn't wide enough. I take some shots, but I doubtthey'd be worth anything.
A hazy ornage sun peers out through a hole in the clouds. Crows caw and car at me, and the traffic roars by on 81.
The big Lady at Loretto says Mom is smart, and even in her dementia, issmarter than a lot of "normal" people.
I hear what sounds like a gunshot and jump. A flock of blackbirds skitters overhead. What was that? I see no one.
I find more snowdrops but they are going by already. I take a shot anyway. Bad light, bad flowers, why bother. But I do. don't know why.
So many gravestones andmonuments are ipped over. Why do young men feel the need to be so destructive. Too bad they can't all live on some other planet until they turn 55.
I comeup over the topof the hill and see coming down the next hill bunches of youngmen and gogs. They're sitting down in front of the pyramid. They were running down the hills taking huge airborn leaps. Now they are shouting in their excited young male voices, sounding happy, having fun. One pretends to climb the pyramid. The others laugh. Two doves fly away. Nearby, but out of sight of the firstgroup,another group of college kids sits on anoher large monument. more groups wander through the trees. A runner jogs by. I'm a little out of place among all these kids. I was a kid here oncemyself. I smell pot, a strong waft of it comes down to me. Do the kids not know adults can smell it?
Not that I care. But someone else might.
One thing about walking here is all the hills. Up and up and up and up. Very tiring.
A train goes by the tracks where a little while ago, I was.
I've only walk 17 minutes and all I want to do is sit. But i have to walk and eat and go to the Y.
It's a BIG long train and keeps going and going. I can see the cars passing through thhe trees. Finally it begins to get quieter. It's sort of like clenaing the living room. I work and work and work, and no progress is visible. I'm almost even with Marshall Hall at ESH (started on the other side of the train tracks. There's Illick. There's Bray. Phew. In some ways,it was ony yesterday when I went to school here. In other ways, it was an eternity.
It's a pretty place, this cememtery. Hilly and treed and old and atractive, but the sky is dark and dismal. It's humid and almost too hot forme. Luckily there's breeze. Not muchworth photographing under such a darkdull sky.
6:11 Now I've walked 23minutes, halfmy walk,and Ihaven'tmade it to the top of the hill yet.
Finally,finally, I make it to the top of the hillnext to Bray Hall at ESF. Puff,pant, phew.
6:15 back down the ill (much morequickly0 to the "Avenue" where basketball fans used to park (and maybe still do). I came here may a time with Bruce.. I've wwalk 29 minutes and the challenge is to figure whereto turn back to make it back to the car in a loop at exactly 45minutes or as close as possble I wouldn't mind walking farther (now that I'm not walking uphill), but I have to eat the dinner I pakced and drive over to Warren etc and park and walk to the poetry reading.
I guess since I will almost surely have to walk to the poetry reading fromsomewhere, and back again, getting exactly 45 minutes isnt that much of an issue.
It occurs to me that I haven'ttaken my daily timeself portrait so I wonk off a couple of shots by one of the mausoleums and by green stag that I likeand then decide to head back to the car--it's getting dark and you're not supposed to be in here after dark. It's one thing if you walk from a dorm,but if you're in here with a car it's quite another. Then there's always the issue of finding the most expedient way back through themorass of interlacing roadways and the question of do I have timetoeat mydinner here or do I ahev to find another place to do that.
The Fat Pathto a brain tumor
Keith will disagree, I'msure. We had this discussion/argument before. But I read anumber of statistic studies and other studies that indicated that it was harmful to be in an electrical field. That's why I unplug my bed every night. I started doing that after reading several of those studies.. For a long time, I did not do that. I slept for years in a heated waterbed. I figured, better late than never.
Studieshave shown that people wholive under powerlines or enarthemor whosleep with electric blanksets (there was aa big electric blanket study) have a higher incidence of leukemia and certain tumors. I don't remember which tumors and cancers they were.
Because I am fat, I have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is highly correlated with obesity. Iam obese. I wish I weren't. Sleep apnea also CAUSES obesity! A vicios circle, but that is not the point for this discussion.
Because I ahve sleep apnea, I have to wear a CPAP machine or risk dying of sleep apnea smothering.
The CPAP machine sits by my ead all night long running and creating an electrical fild which could possibly be the cause of my brain tumor. I moved the CPAP over to dresser besie the bed, but that might not be far enough away. it might also be too little toolate.
But the point is, my gluttonymaybe the cause of my brain tumor. I don't know if it wouldshrink away if Icould escape the elctrical fild. I don't know if they do that on their own once they've started.
Of course, the Cpap is not the only electrical device I spend timewith. There is the ubiquitous computer as well. Sigh. Since I wantt to be a writer and a photographer (digital),giving up the computer would be more of an issue for me.
Aiee. If itmean living or dying, I would definitely consider it!!
There's mylittle car,parkedby the chapel. It's pretty dark, I'd beter leave. Anyway, I have to leave to egt to te reading on time.
Iwalked 46 minutes and tookvery fewpictures.
8:24 PM it's RAININ and Iam walking alone through the city streets with no raincoat on my way tot he car frm the poetry reading. I can't write, it's raining too hard. Warm but rainy.
When I arrived, a young black womanwas feeding money into a meter and when I return, she's coming back too.
The young woman Isaw made methinkof a story and I wanted tow rite it right then. It has to do with the fact that warenStreet is where the protitutes hang out.
When I get home and get out of the car, the rain has stopped and it is warm. I hear the sqeak squeak of a swing swinging. In the dark,nearby.
Saturday, march 1, 2006,4'37 PM
All of a sudden brain tumors are appearing everywhere. A man on NPR kept a diary as he died of a brain tumor. Amy Tan'sfather and brother both died of a brain tumor. And then there is all this talk again about Terry Scraibo (sp)
I amat 3R to walk my constitutional,at Fox HuntMeadow,at Fox hunt gate.
It's raining. Elderberry Pond. I'd like to go there sometime,an organic restaurant.
My daffodils opened. BIG peeper din.
It's darkly overcast and there's not much to see anyway, but I'mm carrying my gear in a backpack.
I miss Keith.
I want to write down somemore question for Dr. Aziz. Some friend of Linda's says she liked him.
• what is the sname of this type of tumor?
• can they be hereditary? My mother had a brain tumor
• is there an intervention that might be used? What type?
I forgot to read my before walk Patrick Lawlet poem and I wish I had because the misty rainy feel to the air and scene has made me feel somewhat poetic. It's colder and winder than I thought it was and I almost wish I'd dressed warmer. I'm walking on a bermroad that runs between two ares of swamp where old scraggy willows lean over water full of peepers and darkness.
Beside me runs the horse trail, down at the edge of the swamp. But some horse must have been up here,because there is horse poop on the road.
A pine, alone on an island. A flock of brds flies screaming by, half flying, half blown by the wind.
Amy Tan was talking about the "coincidences" in her life. How a friend dreamed he'd be strangled and tortured and he was,how she dreamed the names of his killers, how she wrotethe truth about her gnadmother when she'd never been told it. And I think about the ones I've had, including Keith. Synchonicity.
Hunt club pond is bery full, up to the top of its banks. I peer into the water looking for peepers,but of course, don't see any. Their camophlage is so good and the are silent when you comenear.
One thing about this route I don'tlikeis that it is pretty much an out and back trip and I prefer loops.
Another thing is, there's not much to see. I do like the open vistas.
I never did remember to ask Sara about the little bluestem grass.
I take a side trail It's muddier, but at least the sceneryy is a little differnt. Windy, very windy. i see no snow. If I se none, it will be the first day of no snow.
Oh yes, the electricity qiestion. Probably the wrong question a neaurologist, but I could ask it.
• could exposure to electrical fields from a CPAP, computers erc contribute to this tumor?
I'm at another pnd with a super peeper din. It's screen by trees and shrubs and they must not see me. The road I'm following dwindles away to essentially nothing butan intermittant trail and I cross a wet area, sinking my foot in deep at one spot.
Another pond, another din. Again I look, again I failto see any peepers. I have seen them, but only extremely rarely. I'vephotographed but even more rarely.
The whole area is barren and deserted, which is why I came here. It's not crawling with other people. I've seen no one, and Ican see for a long long ways out through vast plainslike area of grasses and islands of trees.
he grass is mostly a bleached tan, only remotely green in a few spots. The weeds are tan, the trees barren, and the wind hurtles over it all, blowing the taller weeds,tumbling leaves, beating my pants coldly against my legs. The rain has stopped.
I turn on the FoxHunt meadow Bunker Cross trail where Iwas the day before yesterday. For a hundred yards, this walk will coincide wih that before I turn and head back toard the car. The Sophie pond is not far, but i need to go home and sign papers for Charles Wicks, was dishes, work on the livingroom. I am living a solo life right nnow. I like solitude, but I also get lonely. And depressed and desperate about thelack of progress.
Here's snow! I guess this will not be my first walk without snow. Not much, just little patches, but it is here.
Two patches of snow back there and another slightly bigger one here.
I hadn'ttaken any pictures, and nothing seems worthy of the timeandenergy. But I love the wide open spaces and the trees here and there and I finally attempt a shot.
A couple of shots.
Washed with peeper song, and grey wind.
' I think I have tot ake a picture of myself for the self portrait Tuesday group, but then I remember that time time theme is over, and the new theme is April fool and I am in a melancholy mood and not a the mood of a fool. I may BE a fool, but I don't feel like acting the parrt at the moment. I'll have to keep my eyes open for foolish opportunities, but this vast windwashed grey plain with peeper din and dead possoms just doesn't seem the place to act the fool. I like skulls, but this possom is not ready to be a skull and I leave it where it lies. I am walking into the wind. I wonder if I should take a picture for Keith.
Does he need or want to see a new one every day?
Four more patches of snow. I saw theme arlier but was writing about something else and forgot them.
I hear myself thinking that I'd be happier IF
• IF I could walk somewhere more beautfiful,
• if the weather was more condisive to photography
• if I did't have to go home and work on a hopeless task
• if I was better at cleaning and sorting and could just hurry up and get it done
• if I was thinner,
• if I could sleep at night,
• if I didn't have to wear a CPAP, if I didn't have a brain tumor
And I decide it is time for a grattitude list
• I am grateful for Keith and Graham, for meeting them and having their love
• I am grateful Sara and Erin, their lives, their love, and the fact that they are beautiful healthy people
• I am gateful for trees. I am always grateful for trees.
• Iam grateful for peepers and spring and ponds and reflections
• Iam garteful that I have had 59 interesting years of life
• I am grateful for poetry and photography and the fun they have given me
• I am grateful for creativity
• I am grateful for love and friendship and support
• I am grateful for each of my friends and the different ways they love me
• I am grateful for wind and dark skies and sunshine
• I am grateful for seasons, and how they change, for variety
• I amgateful for this opportunity for have all this space around me, this wind and peppers and openess and solitude
• Iam grateful for companionshop
• I am grateful that my firomyalgia andmy arthritis seems to bemuch better and that I can walk farther and that I can still get around and that asthma too is better
• I am grateful to be back to the car It was all uphill and intothe wind coming back and took longer than Iexpected.
It occurs to methat I need to move all thepoetry and novels that are on floppies to CDs and other media, and how andwhen can I do that. I haven't backed any ofmy newphotos up--thattakes timeawayfrom cleaning etc. Oh, here I go,complaining again. Iwas so happy when I was thinking of thingsto be grateful for.
I read my after walk Patrick Lalwerpoem. It's about evisceratin the brain.
Of course,the oil light is on. It's always on. I haven't seen itNOT on inweeks.
Ticky Sjaggs is on Prairie Home Compnaion, playing Bluegrass, which will be icetolisten to while I workin the livingroom and sign papers etc.
I am thinking of making meatloaf with some ground buffalo. I want to make it maybe on Tuesday and then have some of it Thursday for the tip forlunch. And I'd liketo makeoatmeal cookies forthe trip,too, but I have to buy some ww pastry flour,as I don't have any. I could have the meatload for dinner Tuesday, and for lunchwednesday and for lunch on the tip if I don'tpig out on it Tuesday.
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